Problem 2640. Find similar sequences

Created by Guillaume
Appears in Physics

Difficulty:Rate

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Another problem inspired by a question on the answers forum.

Given a matrix of positive integer numbers, find all the rows that are similar to the first rows and return these rows as a new matrix.

Rows are considered similar if the numbers common to both rows are in the exact same order with no other numbers in between. 0s in a row are always ignored and only occur at the end of the row.

For example:

 [3 1 5 0 0] and [4 2 1 5 0] are similar (1 5 are the common numbers and occur in the same order)
 [3 1 5 0 0] and [3 4 1 5 0] are not similar (3 1 5 are the common numbers, there's a 4 in between)

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Last Solution submitted on May 03, 2025

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Problem Comments

5 Comments

5 Comments

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Guillaume on 24 Oct 2014

Basically, find the numbers that are common to both rows. If they're consecutive in both, with no gaps, keep the row

Binbin Qi on 25 Oct 2014

I see

Rafael S.T. Vieira on 16 Aug 2020

Maybe a better description for the problem would be that the largest sequence of equal numbers between two rows must have the same size and be unique.